


Emotional Consequences of Spider Bites and Web-Slinging

by dearzoemurphy



Category: Community (TV), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Gen, but grief is a running theme in the work, major character death is in the past + in another dimension, the britta/jeff is only mentioned + in a different dimension, the community characters are various spider-people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27019672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearzoemurphy/pseuds/dearzoemurphy
Summary: In a way, Britta was grateful for being transported to another dimension. Or timeline, or alternate reality, or whatever this was.Later that same day, after her usual nightly patrol, she’d been sucked into a vortex and landed in Times Square. Except it wasn’therTimes Square, made immediately obvious by the fact that she had been greeted by a digital billboard bearing a large picture of Jeff; about a decade older than hers had been, but dead all the same, apparently.A Britta-centric Into the Spiderverse/Community AU. Inspired byStudies in Web-Slinging and Friendly Neighborhood Relationsby jabedalien.
Relationships: Britta Perry & Jeff Winger, Britta Perry & Troy Barnes, Britta Perry & Troy Barnes & Jeff Winger, Britta Perry/Jeff Winger (mentioned)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	Emotional Consequences of Spider Bites and Web-Slinging

**Author's Note:**

> hi I had some ideas and they wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote them all out, so here we are!! hope you all enjoy <3

_“Just keep drumming…just keep drumming…”_ Britta thought, trying to keep herself in the rep.

She’d been finding it harder and harder to focus during band rehearsal. As it turns out, carrying the responsibility of being a superhero tends to weigh a little heavier than most other matters.

All she had to do was keep tapping her foot in time to the beat to keep the bass thumping. All she had to do was hit the snare and the toms and the hi-hat at the right times. All she had to do was not think about the last time she saw Jeff’s face. Or how he clung to her as she cradled his head in her hands. Or how he’d said, barely above a whisper, _“I just wanted to be special…like you.”_

She went to hit the hi-hat, but her hand slipped and the drum stick fell out of it. It landed with a clatter onto the drum underneath, causing the rest of her bandmates to turn and look at her. Annie gave her an annoyed glare before quickly turning back to the microphone. Britta sighed, picking up the stick and trying to get back on the beat. However, it wasn’t long before her hand slipped again and the drum stick fell out, this time landing on the ground.

“Britta! What’s going on?” Annie asked, spinning around to face her and huffing in frustration. Paige and Claire stopped playing and singing as well, turning cautiously towards the others.

“I…I don’t know. Just having a rough day,” Britta said dismissively. She leaned down to pick up the stick and pulled both of them close to her chest.

“That’s what you’ve said at every practice for the past two weeks!” Annie exclaimed, “You’ve been late, you’ve been off the beat, you’ve been forgetting the music, what gives?”

Britta gripped her sticks a little more tightly. “It’s been a rough couple of weeks,” she replied softly.

“All of us have been having a rough go of it, Bree! But we’re all still doing what needs to be done for the band,” Paige chimed in, stepping over to the drum set and reaching out to pat her on the shoulder.

“We’ve all been having a rough go of it, huh?” Britta said darkly, chuckling, “Let’s see, who in this room has lost their best friend within the past month?”

Paige flinched, her hand jerking away from Britta. Her, Annie, and Claire stared at her in stunned silence, entirely unsure of how to respond.

“Britta…we know you miss him. All of us do. But we can’t change what happened,” Annie said gently.

“No you don’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, no you don’t!” Britta screamed, leaping off of her stool and throwing her drum sticks across the room, “You don’t miss him like I do! None of you cared about him the way I did! I’ll bet that you don’t know his middle name. Or his favorite flavor of ice cream. Or what it was like to stay up all night, talking and stargazing together from inside his treehouse. You have no idea what this past month has been like for me!”

Another stunned silence followed her outburst.

“Maybe we don’t,” Claire said, stepping forward, “but maybe you could channel that into the music,” she suggested.

Britta laughed. She couldn’t help it. Her loud, rolling laugh filled up every inch of the room.

“Fuck you. Fuck you all,” she said once she was able to stop laughing.

“What?”

“Read my lips, Annie! _Fuck. You,_ ” Britta repeated, getting up into the lead singer’s face, “You’re going to need a new drummer, because I’m done! We’re done here,” she added. She circled back around to grab her jacket and her backpack, slinging the bag over one shoulder.

“Wait, Bree, you can’t go!” Paige exclaimed, rushing over to cling to her arm.

Britta gave her a tight lipped smile. “Watch me.”

After all, it was better this way. She didn’t need to run the risk of losing anyone else.

\---

In a way, Britta was grateful for being transported to another dimension. Or timeline, or alternate reality, or whatever this was.

Later that same day, after her usual nightly patrol, she’d been sucked into a vortex and landed in Times Square. Except it wasn’t _her_ Times Square, made immediately obvious by the fact that she had been greeted by a digital billboard bearing a large picture of Jeff; about a decade older than hers had been, but dead all the same, apparently.

He looked good. Handsome, even. This Jeff had lived long enough to grow a full beard and begin to have crow’s feet and smile lines, giving him a mature look that surprised Britta. And this Jeff had been in her place, presumably getting bitten years prior. She wondered what it might have been like if they’d both gotten bitten back in her world. Or if neither of them had. She almost fell off the roof of the building that she’d landed on - unable to help herself from stepping towards the giant image and calling out Jeff’s name.

It wasn’t long before something else demanded her attention. It was never long. Though this was definitely the first time that her spider sense had sent her to a nerdy magnet school.

Whatever. She might as well suck it up and pretend that she didn’t know how good she looked in plaid skirts.

\---

“Hey,” Troy said, placing one hand on Britta’s shoulder and giving her a dorky sort of smile.

She chuckled nervously. Yup, he was definitely this timeline’s Spider-Man. He definitely had no idea what he was doing. And as a result, his hand was definitely stuck in her hair.

Britta was not amused when they ended up in the nurse’s office, the school nurse hacking away at her hair. Troy yanked his hand as far away as he could, but there were still patches where it had to be cut close enough that she could feel the cold steel graze against her scalp.

Once his hand was free, the side of her head was a choppy mess.

“It’s pretty bad over here, would you like me to even things out?” the nurse asked.

Britta sighed. It wasn’t like she had the time or patience to fix this later on her own.

“Sure. Why not.”

She tried to ignore Troy watching forlornly as the nurse buzzed away at the short locks that were beyond salvation, still seething with anger. This was just the cherry on top of a long string of piss-poor luck that apparently transcended dimensions. Or timelines. Or whatever this fucking was, she didn’t even care anymore. All she knew was that this new little Spider-Man was now her responsibility; a responsibility that she really, really didn’t want.

It had been a while since she’d gotten anything that she wanted, hadn’t it.

\---

A few days later, her Spider Sense went on such high alert that it woke her from a pleasant afternoon nap. She’d created a webbed hammock and strung it between two buildings in a more rundown part of town, close to the water. Most would say that it wasn’t ideal, but to Britta, it was paradise.

However, out of an overwhelming sense of obligation, she hauled ass over to the technological institute. Of course Troy and someone who appeared to be another Spider-Man were there. It was somewhat comforting to know that trouble followed all of them around.

She immediately saw why she had been called there; she assumed that the woman with giant robotic tentacles was a bad guy. And with both of the other spider-people webbed to a tree, it was up to her to get whatever that woman was currently trying to abscond with.

 _“She looks kinda like my science teacher, Ms. Dart, doesn’t she?”_ Britta thought as she kicked the brunette right in the face. A couple more strategic kicks later, she grabbed the computer that the tentacled woman had been holding and _thwiped_ over to the others.

“Hey guys,” she said casually, landing on a branch and peeling off her mask, giving a toss of her hair.

“Britta?” Troy said incredulously, looking up the best he could in his current webbed-up state.

“Oh, so you know her? Very cool,” the other Spider-Man said. His voice was low and…familiar.

“I’m from another dimension. Another…another dimension,” Britta said, eyeing the pair.

“Let me guess, blown in through a vortex, landed in Times Square, realized that this wasn’t your New York, then got told by your Spider Sense to head for Troy here?” the sweatpant-clad Spider-Man asked.

“Yup. That’s pretty much it. Mine told me to go to Visions Academy, and I wasn’t sure why until I met you,” she said, looking at Troy.

“I like your haircut,” he said timidly.

Britta frowned. “You don’t get to like my haircut,” she said, glancing over his shoulder, “Anyway, we’d better get out of here. We’re still in the line of fire.”

As she hugged the computer tight to her chest and swung away, she heard Troy ask, “How many spider-people are there?”

_“One is too many for my liking.”_

\---

The trio decided to take the bus back into town, so they ended up sitting at the first stop they found that was a comfortable distance away from the institute. Britta ended up wedged between Troy and the other man on the tiny steel bench, partially leaning onto Troy’s shoulder.

“Ugh, I can’t believe I almost blew it back there,” the older man said, taking off his mask in frustration.

Britta turned to look at him and suddenly realized why his voice had sounded so familiar. He was even older than the Jeff from this dimension that she’d seen on the billboard. He had shaggier hair, more pronounced stubble, and even more wrinkles. And a little less of a six-pack. But he was still, unmistakably, Jeff.

“Hey,” he said cautiously, noticing her pained expression, “Is everything okay? I’m-”

“Jeff,” Britta breathed, “Yeah. Hi.”

He looked at her with a certain understanding, his expression softening. “You got a Jeff back in your dimension?”

“I…I did. Yeah. My best friend,” she replied.

Older Jeff nodded. “Well, feel free to call me something else if that makes this easier for you,” he offered.

Classic Jeff. It was good to know that he would have grown out of being embarrassed about his kindness.

“No, Jeff is fine,” Britta insisted.

“Wait, so how did you know we were here and needed help?” Troy interjected, visibly confused as he was still trying to process the events of the last few minutes.

Britta laughed. “Spider Sense, bud. The same thing that led me to your school. Except this time, instead of guiding me when I was directionless in a new dimension, it interrupted quite a pleasant afternoon nap,” she said, sounding almost perturbed.

“Uh huh…so, how did you become Spider-Man?” he asked, leaning forward onto the edge of his seat.

“Oh, you know, the usual. Joined a band, got bit by a spider, fought…some people, saved some people, became a Twitter moment and a wanted woman…nothing too off brand for us,” Britta said.

“I’ve done like…two of those,” Troy said, “but I can’t wait to do the rest!”

Britta gave him a sad smile. “I’m sure you can’t.” 

\---

Of course they’d ended up at Aunt Shirley’s house. And of course this Aunt Shirley was a total badass. And - double ‘of course’ - there were more Spider-people that had already found her.

“I’m Spider-Ham, but you can call me Chang,” a small spider-pig waddling up to the trio said, sticking out a dripping wet hand for them to shake.

Britta politely refused, smiling and nodding as she kept walking forward and taking in the lair. It was honestly incredible, fully stocked with every type of suit, vehicle, and web a spider-person could dream of.

“I’m Abed, code name Spider-Noir. I’m your classic serial detective, punching Nazis and stopping crime while neglecting my personal life. My wife took the kids in the divorce and kicked me out, so all I have is the cold, hard concrete and the adrenaline rush that comes with knocking fascists onto it,” a man in a monochrome spider suit, coat, and hat said as he descended from the ceiling.

“Whoa, are you like, a guy from one of those old black and white movies?” Troy asked, his eyes growing wide.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Spider-Noir replied, looking vaguely off into the distance.

“And I’m Annie Kim! I’m from the year 3145 and I have a psychic link with a spider who lives inside my father’s robot, and we’re best friends!” a cheerful voice said. Britta couldn’t see who it belonged to until a little girl dropped down in front of the group on said robot, both of them smiling and striking action poses.

Her, Jeff, and Troy eyed the other three with a certain amount of curiosity. It wasn’t long before their spider sense was activated and all became clear.

“You’re like me,” they all said, more or less in unison.

 _“I guess it’s nice to not be alone,”_ Britta thought.

\---

The only thing Britta could think when this universe’s evil Ms. Dart busted down Aunt Shirley’s front door was _of course_. Of course there was a shadow organization after them, hell bent on acquiring the key they needed to get back to their home dimensions.

Right after Jeff had fastened the key around his neck, Troy had rushed into the house to tell the group that his Uncle LeVar was the Prowler that had been chasing him since he’d gotten bitten. Only a moment later, they were thrown into what had become known to Britta as a rather standard mid-level battle, swinging around the house and punching henchmen while also avoiding Ms. Dart’s robotic tentacles.

She was outside when she heard the gunshot. She saw Jeff swing over and yell something to Troy, who picked up his Uncle LeVar and made a hasty exit.

This was the hardest part of the origin story.

\---

Britta decided to swing over to Visions Academy while the others were helping Aunt Shirley clean up the best that they could. They had elected her the best candidate to talk to Troy before they all went over to break the tough news that he couldn’t help them get back home, an assessment that she agreed with, but didn’t necessarily like. She wasn’t quite ready to have this emotional of a conversation.

She saw someone sitting on the roof of the Visions’ dormitory building, someone that she quickly identified as Troy. She swung upwards from the next building over, landing to take a seat next to him on the edge of the roof.

“Hey, Troy,” Britta said softly.

He didn’t look up.

“I just wanted to say-”

“My uncle LeVar didn’t make it,” Troy said, wiping at his left eye, “He…I couldn’t even get him that far away…my dad…”

“Hey, hey. Easy. Easy. Take a deep breath,” Britta said as he burst into tears, burrowing his head into her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him, unsure of how, exactly, to best console him. No one had been there for her when she’d gone through this, so she didn’t have any sort of blueprint to follow.

“My dad found me with him. He thinks that I killed him,” Troy forced out once the worst of his sobs had subsided.

“Oh. Okay. Well, I guess-”

“Didn’t I, though?” Troy asked, voice barely above a whisper.

Britta pulled back for a moment and gave him a shocked look. “I’m sorry, _what_?”

“If I hadn’t tried to be Spider-Man, he wouldn’t have been ordered to hunt me down. And we wouldn’t have been there on Aunt Shirley’s roof. And he wouldn’t…we could have just kept going on like normal. I could be going to class like a normal kid! I…I could still be normal,” he said, each word weighing heavy on his tongue.

“Oh, Troy…” Britta murmured, pulling him closer again, “I’m sorry. Once we get bit, there’s no such thing as normal anymore. This…this is what it’s like. We can choose to walk away, and there’s no shame in that, but our spider senses have a hard time accepting that. It’s what keeps us in the fight until-”

“Until we all end up like Jeff.”

Britta swallowed. “Yeah. Until we all end up like Jeff.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Troy leaning further and further into Britta as she attempted to soothe him, staring out at the New York City skyline.

“Who was yours?” Troy asked eventually in a soft, scared voice.

“Who was mine?” Britta echoed.

“Who did you lose?”

Britta took a deep breath. “My Jeff. He was my best friend in the whole world. We did everything together, from the time we were kids,” she replied.

“How did it happen?” Troy asked, even softer.

She gave a dry laugh. “It’s funny you ask, because it was actually my fault.”

“No way. I’m sure that’s not true,” Troy said quickly.

Britta nodded, still looking straight ahead, hoping that she wouldn’t cry if she kept her gaze locked on the horizon. “It is. He…he was my first fight. He invented this…solution…that turned him into this lizard thing. And he started attacking our school, so I had to stop him. We fought, and once I subdued him, the solution had started to wear off to the point where I could tell that it was him. It had…infected him. So after I got to him, it was only a few minutes before he…he…”

“I’m sorry,” Troy said earnestly, “That’s not your fault, you didn’t know.”

“He said that he only made the solution so that he could be like me, Troy.”

Britta kept looking at the skyline. She didn’t dare look down, even when she felt Troy tugging on her hood.

“I’m sorry, Britta. But you’re no more responsible for that happening than I am for what happened to my uncle,” he said.

She finally moved her gaze downwards and smiled. She didn’t believe him, but said, “Thanks, Troy,” anyways.

\---

They assembled the closest thing to a foolproof plan that they could without Troy. A plan that hinged on yet another Jeff paying the ultimate price. Another _of course_.

And then, there they were at the Kingpin’s gala, wearing little bow ties with their spider suits to blend in.

As they were pushing a food cart concealing Annie Kim and her robot, Britta was doing her best to ignore Kingpin’s speech. Something about this Jeff being his best friend, so on and so forth. But then.

“I just wanna thank Britta Perry-Winger for being here this evening,” he said.

Britta spun around in time to see her alternate dimension self stand up at a nearby table. Maybe her first thought shouldn’t have been _“Damn. I look good.”_

She wasn’t the only one to have her eye caught by this older, more radiant version of herself. Even with his mask on, she could tell that Jeff was looking longingly after her.

_“Oh, fuck.”_

Jeff moved to follow old Britta wherever she was going, but was stopped by young Britta throwing herself in front of him.

“Pay attention! That’s not your Britta, Jeff,” she hissed, trying desperately to keep him away.

He snapped out of his trance and looked at her. Through both of their masks, the pain they were feeling was evident.

“Right. She’s not,” he said.

They kept pushing the cart through the double doors and into the hallway in silence, Britta still processing the implications of the Kingpin calling the Britta of this dimension ‘Britta Perry-Winger’.

“Hey, so, uh…”  
“Yes, Jeff?”

“About what happened back there…I kind of dated my dimension’s Britta,” he said quietly.

Britta looked over at him and narrowed her eyes. “That much I gathered.”

“Yeah. I just…I don’t know. I didn’t want to say anything about it because you’re a teenage Britta, and I didn’t want to make you feel weird,” Jeff said sheepishly, “and meeting you didn’t affect me. But seeing her? She…she looked just like my Britta.”

“I get it. Thanks, I think? I guess that would have made things kinda weird,” she agreed.

Jeff nodded. “Yeah. I…I’m sorry that you lost yours. Not like me, I just drove mine away with my inability to time manage and my fear of having kids, but like-”

“Yeah. It’s alright,” Britta cut him off dismissively. She didn’t want to think about her Jeff or contemplate the fact that an alternate version of herself wanted to have kids.

“No, it’s not,” Jeff said firmly, “I know how much my Britta meant to me. _Means_ to me. I can’t imagine what kind of a mess I would be if I had to go through losing her…more permanently.”

They stopped the cart in front of the elevator shaft in the hallway. Britta took a deep breath to center herself.

“Thanks. He meant…the world. To me,” she said, heaving out what might be considered a sigh of relief.

Jeff nodded. “I really am sorry. You were both so young…” he trailed off, reaching out to place a hand on Britta’s shoulder. She flinched, but instead of pulling away, she flung her arms around him and clung on as tightly as she could.

It took a moment, but Jeff eventually hugged her back, gently swaying from side to side.

“Alright guys, are we ready to go?” Annie asked, popping off the tablecloth and reading her robot. Chang and Abed stood behind her, giving affirmative nods.

“I’m always ready! I’ve got my trusty mallet and my silly hat!” the Spider-Ham exclaimed, producing said mallet out of nowhere along with a little tricorn hat.

Britta let go of Jeff and nodded, trying to wipe away a tear despite still wearing her mask. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

\---

And then there they were, in the secret underground lab, just in time to see the collider be powered on.

As she looked into the multicolored stream, Britta had an idea. She couldn’t let this Jeff sacrifice his life for theirs. He had an ex-girlfriend - an old Britta of his own - in his home dimension to win back. He had an Aunt Shirley. He had _some_ kind of a family. What did Britta have? Nothing. No one. It would be selfish to make him give all of that up just so that she could go back home and continue her lonely, miserable existence.

She couldn’t let another Jeff die to save her. 

“Jeff…you don’t have to stay behind to destroy it. I can do it,” she said shakily as they all stared down at the collider’s pulsating beam.

He looked over at her. Even though he had his mask on, she could see the pain in his expression.

“No, it’s okay. I’ve made up my mind,” Jeff said. Before Britta could protest further, he swung away onto the ceiling. She sighed.

 _“I suppose I don’t have enough time to talk him out of this, do I?”_ she thought. It was strangely comforting to know that every Jeff seemed as stubborn as hers had been.

The group swung after him, Abed, then Chang, then Annie Kim, then Britta assembling in a formation around Jeff.

“I’ll put the Goober in and take over the beam. After you’re gone, I’ll blow it up,” Jeff called, slowly inching forward. Britta couldn’t help but roll her eyes at his insistence on calling the key a ‘Goober’.

Jeff turned around to look at the motley crew one more time. “Good luck, guys,” he said softly, quickly turning back around and moving to complete his objective.

However, before he could lock the key into place, Britta felt her spider sense activate.

“They know we’re here.”

On cue, a ceiling tile next to the group opened to reveal a now familiar mass of robotic tentacles. Jeff was slung away from the control panel by one of the tentacles, the others dispersing in an attempt to evade them.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me!” Britta exclaimed in a tone that was more suited to expressing frustration over a stubbed toe than it was for expressing the hopelessness she was currently experiencing.

“Oh, you’d better believe it, buster. These kinds of villains never really go away,” Abed remarked, swinging onto the ledge next to her. He landed on it for a brief moment before immediately swinging off again to fight one of the numerous henchmen.

“Oh, I believe it,” Britta grumbled, moving to simultaneously dodge a tentacle and kick one of their enemies in the face.

\---

Everything had been so predictable until Troy showed up. Seeing him in his new suit exercising his special powers to save Jeff was the one thing from the past 48 hours that hadn’t made Britta grumble a less than enthused “of course”.

“He figured it out…” she muttered approvingly in between swinging and fending of attacks.

However, there was no time for idle conversation. Cars and buildings and buses started pouring out of the collider’s beam, knocking the group around until Britta, Jeff, and Troy all landed on a sideways skyscraper.

“Guys, are you seeing this?!” Troy yelled, looking around to the rest of the spider-people.

“It looks like our dimensions are coming to us,” Britta grumbled, taking note of all of the stylistically different buildings.

“It looks cool though, right?” Jeff said as they gazed at the beam, oozing with the structures of other dimensions. If the situation hadn’t been so dire, Britta would have been inclined to agree.

“We gotta get back up there,” she insisted. It was then that a rogue tentacle was flung in their direction, Jeff and Troy dodging it. Unfortunately, Britta was knocked back, the evil scientist floating down to flash her a less-than-charming grin.

 _“Oh, I will_ not _be able to look at Ms. Dart the same way ever again,”_ Britta thought as this dimension’s Ms. Dart released her grip on her, sending the blonde plummeting towards the collider beam.

“Britta!” Troy shrieked. He immediately swung into action, using close by buildings for leverage and falling down after her. It was only a moment before her grabbed her by the wrist, looking for a secure spot to swing up onto.

“I like your suit,” Britta said weakly.

She could almost see Troy’s satisfied smirk through his mask. “Thanks. I made it myself.”

“Great work, team! Now, hold on tight!” Jeff called to them.

Thinking quickly, Troy shot out a web that Jeff caught before throwing them upwards. He gave Britta a small nod before hurling her upwards, the strange laws of gravity making it so that she flew up to octo-Dart and delivered a knockout punch. Troy and Jeff were close behind, delivering punches of their own to seal the deal.

Troy and Britta bumped fists as she plummeted into the beam. However, their celebration was premature, as she caught herself between two skyscrapers with her tentacles. She shot herself back up towards the platform that the three spider-people were standing on, causing each of them to let out various grumbles of annoyance.

“Shit. This is gonna take a while,” Britta said.

However, their complaining was premature as well. In a rare stroke of luck, a large semi truck came out of the beam and knocked right into the villain.

Jeff gasped and grabbed onto Troy, Britta unable to look away from the scene in shock.

“All right, never mind,” she said, turning to look at the pair behind her, “Let’s end this thing.”

“Guys, I got it,” Troy said, stepping away from them.

“I’ll go,” Jeff began to insist, “I’m the one with the goo-”

Troy triumphantly held it aloft, waving it around for a moment.

“Oh. Good job.”

Before anything else could be said, Troy swung away, pulling himself upwards only to let go and send himself flying down towards the beam.

“Troy!”

“Be careful!” Britta called. She’d never seen anyone develop such courage after only a day, and feared that he might not yet know the limits of their powers.

Thankfully, his strategy worked, a series of objectively cool stunts landing him next to the control panel where he needed to be.

“We taught him that, right?” Jeff asked, turning towards Britta.

“I didn’t teach him that. And you definitely didn’t teach him that,” Britta objected.

He rolled his eyes. “And how can you be so sure?”

She crossed her arms and smirked. “I’ve seen how you swing.”

Before Jeff could protest, Troy beckoned them all up to the control panel, having gained access to the beam.

The spider-people gathered around him one last time, an odd sense of finality to the moment.

“I guess this is it,” Britta said, looking around at the others. She hadn’t known any of them for long, sure. But some part of her had thought that she could have grown accustomed to this kind of companionship.

“Well, it’s nice to know we’re not alone. Right?” Annie Kim said softly.

“Yeah,” they all agreed. It was nice, in an odd sort of way.

Troy turned back to the panel and made a few adjustments. “Alright, I got the portal open. You first, Annie.”

“Thank you, Troy. From both of us,” she said, holding up her psychily linked spider and squeezing Abed’s shoulder before jumping off of him, diving straight into the still bursting beam. It flashed red and blue as she disappeared, hopefully signifying her safe return to her home dimension.

“I…love you. All. I’m taking this cube thing with me,” Abed said, holding aloft a rubik’s cube that he had been fiddling with for the past day, “I don’t understand it, but I will.”

He gave a small salute before pushing off the ceiling and into the beam, which gave a flash of black and white this time.

“I want you to have this,” Chang said, stepping forward and offering Troy his tricorn hat, “It’ll fit in your pocket. That’s all, folks,” he added tearfully. He pushed off the ceiling in a similar fashion, letting himself be carried towards the beam.

“Is he allowed to say that? Legally?” Jeff asked as a brilliant cartoony colors lit up the objects swirling around them.

Troy looked at Britta. She knew it was her turn to go.

Truthfully, if she could have stayed in this dimension with him and this Jeff, she might have considered it. Given time, they might open her up to the possibility of having friends again. She might be able to love them as she had her Jeff. They could be an unstoppable team. But, alas, her and Jeff couldn’t stay.

“Do I get to like the haircut now?” Troy asked earnestly.

Britta chuckled, taking off her mask and stuffing it away. “Sure. You get to like it, now. But for the record, if this were any other situation, I would say no.”

“For what it’s worth, I think it’s pretty cool, too,” Jeff chimed in.

She looked up at him, giving an honest smile as he took his own mask off. “Thanks, Jeff. I’m gonna miss you,” she said, feeling herself getting a little choked up.

_“I can’t cry during my last moments with these guys. I can’t…”_

“Hey. Britta,” Jeff said, him and Troy each placing a hand on one of her shoulders, “You’re gonna be alright. Take this as your chance to start over.”

“You should find the 'me' in your dimension,” Troy suggested with a shy smile.

Britta smiled back, doing her best to keep her tears at bay. “Yeah? I bet he won’t be quite as cool as you are,” she said, sniffling.

“You’re the best, Britta,” he said, pulling himself closer to her for a suspended half-hug.

“You go knock ‘em dead, Britts,” Jeff said, squeezing her shoulder

She placed a hand on top of his to squeeze back for a moment. “You too.”

With one last bittersweet smile and wave, she let go and flew down into the beam. Everything was a cool, electric blue.

\---

“Hey, so…I’m sorry about yesterday.”

Annie, Paige, and Claire all eyed her suspiciously.

“It’s not like you to apologize, Britta,” Annie said, her arms crossed.

“I know, I know. I just…I’ve been going through a lot. And I know you guys know that. But I’m still in the process of recovering from…a lot. I thought I could do it alone, but I realized that I can’t,” Britta explained. She laced her fingers together, rocking back onto her heels.

“If you’re willing to give me another chance, I would appreciate your patience and would like to keep being friends. And if you would have me, I’d love to rejoin the band.”

Paige glanced to Claire, then Annie, then looked back at Britta. “I’m sorry about yesterday, Bree. We should have been doing more to help you before now. I’m only speaking for myself here, but I would love for you to keep playing with us.”

Claire nodded in agreement, her and Paige looking to Annie for approval.

“I’m sorry, too. From now on, we’ll do a better job of supporting each other,” Annie said. She reached out to the other girls, prompting them to come in for a group hug. They happily obliged, Paige squealing happily as they threw their arms around each other.

 _“I’m starting over, Jeff. You proud of me?”_ Britta thought as she laid her head on Annie’s shoulder, _“I haven’t found my ‘you’ yet, Troy. But I’m looking. I promise.”_

\---

Britta slid underneath her covers, nestling herself into place. She yawned and turned over onto her side, curling herself up around a pillow. However, she was interrupted by a glowing blue light above her head, making her eyes fly open and prompting her to sit up.

“Hey, Britta?” a familiar voice called.

She could barely contain her excitement, a broad smile spreading across her face as she gazed into the growing portal.

“Hey, Troy. It’s so good to see you again.”

**Author's Note:**

> as always, please leave a comment with any thoughts/opinions/etc. down below!!
> 
> will this become a series?? maybe!! everything seems to be becoming a series lately. I have ideas, but we shall see.
> 
> I hope you all have a great day/afternoon/night, stay safe and take care!! <3


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